Opportunities exist to utilize proven robotics technology to automate the process of building air-launched ready service weapons aboard aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships. Affordable and reliable automated systems, working in concert with crew members, promise means to increase ordnance throughput rates sufficiently to support the most aggressive sortie generation rates, while significantly reducing crew workload and improving safety. In the Phase I project, Agile Systems Inc. developed a concept for a flexible, reconfigurable automation system designed to assist ordnancemen in removing bomb bodies from their pallets and missiles and other all up rounds from their shipping containers, and loading those weapons into a GBU assembly system or directly onto MHU-191/M ready service transport skids. A detailed analysis of current weapons assembly, bomb depalletizing and missile decanning operations was conducted in Phase I and concepts for the overall system and key subsystems were developed and evaluated. In Phase II, an engineering prototype of the proposed bomb and missile handling system will be built and demonstrated.
Keywords: Navstors, Naval Stowage And Retrieval System, Weapons Assembly, Air-Launched Weapons, Missile Handling, Bomb Handling, Aircraft Carrier, Lha/Lhd
